


Captured Ghosts

by HunterPeverell



Series: Welcome to Glory [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Captain America: The First Avenger, Captain America: The Winter Soldier Spoilers, M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Pre-Captain America: The First Avenger, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-15
Updated: 2014-12-15
Packaged: 2018-03-01 15:33:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2778362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HunterPeverell/pseuds/HunterPeverell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky never thought it was for always, when he met Steve. Turns out 'always' was a lot longer than either of them had imagined.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Captured Ghosts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mmouse15](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mmouse15/gifts).



> Happy Birthday mum!
> 
> My lovely beta is Sherlocked_Gallifreyan, who is awesome and amazing.
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own Captain America or its character, nor do I own the cat known as Fluffernutter--he's all yours, mom!
> 
> Title taken from the song 'Welcome Home' by Radical Face

_“Just because I do not accept the teachings of the devotaries does not mean I've discarded a belief in right and wrong."_  
_"But the Almighty determines what is right!"_  
_"Must someone, some unseen thing, declare what is right for it to be right? I believe that my own morality—which answers only to my heart—is more sure and true than the morality of those who do right only because they fear retribution.”  
—Brandon Sanderson  
_

See, it wasn’t _always_ for Bucky.

Steve Rogers wasn’t _always_ his best friend. Bucky wouldn’t _always_ have died for Steve. _Always_ was a big commitment for a selfish little kid who had better friends than that sickly Steve Rogers.

But it did, in fact, end up _always_.

Bucky just didn’t know it yet.

*

For Bucky, he grew up with some twit named Steve Rogers who lived only two blocks away, but they could avoid the street by dashing through the back alley and hopping over a fence. For Bucky, there was no greater thing then going to see Steve, creeping in the shadows like spies, even as Bucky grew up to be big and Steve remained small.

“Why’s he so small?” He asked his mother one night.

“Who, dear?” She asked absentmindedly.

“Steve. Steve Rogers. He lives down the street.”

“Oh.” His mother looked up at him. “He’s just sick, dear. You be nice to ‘im, now.”

“’Course, ma.” James said. “He’s my friend.”

“’M glad to hear it.” His ma said fiercely. “Tha’ boy is gonna git ‘imself into trouble one day, and you, James, you are gonna help ‘im out.”

“Yes ma.” James said and promptly forgot his promise, returning his attention to the comics he had been reading. In fact, it was little Steve who told James that his name was too formal and ordinary for someone like him, and had pronounced his new name, with a solemnity that rooted Bucky to the spot.

“Bucky?” He’d asked. “Why Bucky?”

“It’s aces.” Steve had said. “I like it. And you’re my only friend, so I think you should have a cool name.”

Bucky hadn’t thought anything of that; what other friends did Steve need? Bucky would be enough, even if Steve wasn’t Bucky’s only friend.

When Bucky looked back on his memories, Steve had never seemed all that awesome to his younger self. He was special; Bucky’s younger self knew that. You just had to look into the fire that burned cold in his eyes to know that. But Steve was small and couldn’t play, and Bucky hadn’t cared much for the large heart that he’d worn on his sleeve, which was visible in his every action even then. They were self-absorbed little kids who just didn’t care about the world around them. Bucky often wished that he’d known what kind of friend Steve would become; how important to Bucky he would grow to be.

Bucky got into his first fight for Steve when they were barely eight.

That was when they really became friends.

There was a large group of them, children from school all together to hang out in the too-tiny lot of dying brown grass spurting out of cracks in the concrete that some older kids mockingly called ‘the Park’. Bucky had a large group of friends, who’d invited more friends of their own, so the grouping was of about twenty or so kids from seven to eleven. Bucky was sprawled against a mangy tree against the far side in the only patch of dirt surrounded by five or so friends. Steve was settled uncomfortably against the grimy wall of the butcher’s shop a little ways away from Bucky and his friends. Bucky had ignored the small pang in his heart, contenting himself to chatter about school with the others. Across the little lot was another knot of kids, and two eleven year olds had gotten bored and were picking on a girl about Steve’s age.

Steve had a crush on Joanna May from-down-the-street since she first moved down from Manhattan at the beginning of the school year. Bucky watched, wide-eyed as Steve marched up to the boys who were pulling at Joanna May’s hair and grinning lewdly at her (the grins, looking back, were the clumsy and sloppy grins of boys copying older kids, but at the time it was shocking). Steve was small, his skin pale and his breaths came short at times, and the boys were big and tall and Steve didn’t stand a chance.

“Hey, Greaseball!” Steve snarled, his lip curling up into a snarl. “Leave ‘er alone!”

“Or what, shorty?” The taller of the two laughed. “You gonna cough on us?”

Steve swung his small fist at the boy’s face, and the jaw he hit didn’t even move. The boy blinked at Steve in disbelief before reeling back and smacking Steve to the ground. Steve fell with barely a thump, and Bucky could hear the breath leave his body.

While he and Steve were friends, it’s not like he and Steve were _best friends_ or something—of course not. Bucky wouldn’t be as popular if that were the case. Bucky had plenty of other friends who were healthier than Steve-Rogers-who-lives-two-blocks-away. It’s just . . . the way Bucky’s childish mind thought of it was that he had his friends, who would play outside with him, and then there was _Steve_ who he could be _himself_ with. There were two different types of friends, and Bucky was confused as to which one was better. Someone who liked him for _him_ or people who helped him be who everyone else wanted to be. He had Steve, who couldn’t do what everyone else wanted to do, and then he had friends who could keep up with him when he ran or played in the street. He had friends who could go outside to play in the snow without the overpowering fear that they’d get sick. He had friends who could breathe _normally_.

But Bucky’s other friends weren’t doing anything to help Joanna May, who was wailing in the background or Steve, who was still on the ground, struggling to rise. In fact, some were openly laughing at him—he was now being kicked by the boys. The small kid was curled up on himself, one hand bunched up in his hair gripping tight to the roots in a futile effort to protect his head. The other hand was wrapped around his too-thin middle.

“Hey!” Bucky shouted, surprising himself. “Leave ‘im alone!” He pushed off from the tree and marched over, his brow furrowed in anger, ignoring the hisses from his friends still clustered around the scraggily tree.

“Ooh, you gonna protect a wimp like this ‘un?” The shorter of the two smirked.

Steve’s daddy had been in the army, but Bucky’s had been, too, and unlike Steve’s daddy his had survived and had taught Bucky how to fight before he died of pneumonia two winters ago. Bucky nailed the shorter of the two in the jaw, and watched in satisfaction as the boy’s head had cracked back from the force. The lot had fallen dead silent, and Bucky offered his hand to Steve, who took it. Bucky pulled him up and marched out of the lot with Steve, glaring back at the boys. He looked down at Steve to see him glaring at the two boys with as much hate as Bucky had.

That. That was when it had begun. Bucky had apparently lost something with his friends, who seemed to find more excuses to not hang out with him anymore. Bucky found himself hanging more and more with Steve. He found he didn’t care either way.

Steve was more interesting than Bucky had first thought. Steve liked to draw, and though Bucky usually found drawing to be dull, it wasn’t when Steve drew. Steve drew  
everything, and he did it with quick, sharp strokes of his charcoal.

“Why d’you draw in charcoal?” Bucky asked one day. “Mrs. White gives out nubs of color for free for kids down at the general store.”

“Can’t see color real well.” Steve muttered, pausing in his drawing and hunching in his shoulders. “Don’t know how they work together, either.”

“Oh.” Bucky said and fell silent for a moment. Then; “I can help you.”

And that’s how Bucky started ducking into the library to read up on colors and how they go together on the paper and then report back to tell Steve in long, drawn out conversations because sometimes Bucky forgot something and had to dash back to the library and reread a fact. Through that, and Steve’s wide eyes that melted Mrs. White’s heart and allowed Steve to take home a few more nubs than Mrs. White usually allowed, Steve mastered color, and suddenly his drawings were full of life and brightness and Mrs. Roger’s started coming home to bright, happy colors slathered over the wall on crinkles of paper.

Soon they stopped being Steve and Bucky and became more like _SteveandBucky_. It didn’t bother them; they both blocked out the time where they weren’t joined at the hip because here and now, when they laughed and talked and told wild stories or were comfortably silent, just breathing together, that was when they were happiest, and being _SteveandBucky_ was way better than being Steve and Bucky.

Bucky wouldn’t trade Steve for the whole world now.

“Hey Buck, ya wanna go down to the piers?” Steve shouted from his room. Bucky and Steve’s momma were in the tiny kitchen. Bucky was helping Steve’s momma chop some carrots and pop them into a pot sitting on the crappy stove. Steve had ducked into his room to put away his drawing pads and charcoals.

Bucky glanced at Steve’s momma, who smiled tiredly and nodded her ascent.

“Ya!” Bucky hollered back. He finished chopping the carrot he’d been working on, and by the time he was done Steve had reappeared and the two took off, rushing out the door and down the stairs and out to the docks and piers looking over the sea. They chased each other for a bit, Bucky being careful not to run too fast, and even more careful to not let Steve think that he was babying him. They threw rocks into the grey, murky water and laughed when the spray crashed into their face.

Steve was smaller than Bucky by a bit. His blonde hair stuck up ridiculously, matted with sand and water and flecks of mud. His blue eyes were alight, and his entire being radiated happiness. Bucky couldn’t imagine anything better than seeing Steve Rogers looking like that.

Eventually they sat down on the pier, skinny legs dangling over the churning water, shoes and socks lumped together behind them. They watched the ships sail by and the seagulls scream at each other and the sun sink lower and lower in the sky.

“I wanna go ‘cross the water one day.” Steve said softly, eyes fixed on the horizon.

“Me too.” Bucky said. “We’ll go together, al’right?”

“Sounds good.” Steve said, a small smile playing at his lips. “You ‘n me together.”

“’Til the end of the line.” Bucky promised.

Bucky was Steve’s only friend and Steve was Bucky’s, now. They didn’t think that’d be a bad thing, ever—quite the opposite as Bucky faced down his ma and Steve’s momma when they came back all beat up ( _again_ ) grinning and telling them about how brave Steve had been and Steve blushing and their ma’s shaking their heads in exasperation—until Steve was nine and Bucky was ten. It had been a year and a half since the incident in the lot, and Bucky and Steve were walking home from helping John-the-fish-seller sell some of his fish for a handful of nickels when they got jumped.

The shorter boy from the lot, the one Bucky had socked in the jaw, was back with two other goonies. They’d grown up some, and had put on some weight and filled out. Behind them, Bucky could see a group of wide-eyed older kids, though some . . . Bucky saw that some were his old friends, and they didn’t look like they’d back him up if the meeting came to blows.

“Well, if it isn’t shorty, and ‘is friend.” The boy leered. “Well, well, well. Looks like we’re gonna ‘ave some fun t’night fellas.”

His friends grinned.

Bucky and Steve raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah, I can see that you’re plenty rugged, but ch’her a _genius_.” Bucky drawled, forcing himself to relax and keep a smirk plastered on his lips. “And an egg. So why don’t you fellows step outta out way and git goin’?”

The boy laughed. “I don’t think so.” He said. “See, you an’ your crumb ‘ere, well, we don’t like you very much.”

“The feelin’s mutual, I assure you.” Steve muttered. Bucky elbowed him in his too-prominent ribs. Steve shot Bucky a glare.

“Wha’s that?” The boy leaned forwards, grinning wolfishly. “Hey, crumb, why don’t you come lick my shoes. They’re in need of a wash an’, well, you obviously don’t know how to use that mouth fer anythin’ good.”

“Back off,” Bucky snarled, taking a step forwards.

“Or wha’?” The boy smirked. “You caught me by surprise tha’ firs’ time, bu’ not this time.”

Bucky balled his fists and swung. The boy dodged and blocked, coming up and hitting Bucky. Bucky spun away, falling hard to the ground and grazing his hands on the glass shatters and gravel bits littering the ground. The crowd behind the boy has laughing and cheering and encouraging the boy to continue. Bucky started to get up when Steve charged forwards, tiny fists raised and murder in his eyes. Bucky’s heart dropped, and he realized that while he’d been getting bigger, Steve was still tiny and the entire group was laughing at him.

The boy casually knocked Steve aside into a garbage bin, and Steve practically _flew_ there to land in a heap among the trash.

“Hey!” Bucky shouted and darted back up to his feet and over to the boy. This time he let loose, kicking and hitting and smashing every inch of flesh he could, but then the friends got involved and no one was helping them and Bucky felt each blow ringing up through his spine and reverberating in his skull and he just wanted it to end, but then they’d get to Steve, who was the only friend Bucky had left and . . .

“Hey, you kids!” John-the-fish-seller shouted. He came bearing down on top of the group, who fled as fast as possible. John-the-fish-seller was almost seven foot tall with the deepest voice Bucky had ever heard. He had black hair, a black beard, and wild blue eyes. He was soft tempered, however, when it came to Bucky and Steve. But right then, he looked like the wrath of God could spew forth from his very being and bring Judgment from Above.

“You boys alright?” He asked softly after the group had vanished, helping Steve out of the trash and offering Bucky his other hand to help himself up on.

“Yeah.” Steve said roughly. “Thanks, John.”

“Ain’t no problem.” John-the-fish-seller assured them. “Now, you boys, don’ go pickin’ fights you can’t win, al’right?”

“Yeah.” Bucky said. “Sure.”

Things changed after that. Steve started getting into more fights, his face painted in blacks and blues and purples and ugly yellow reds more often than not. Bucky knew that when he wasn’t around, Steve often got into a lot of fights. Sometimes he’d come over to see Steve sporting a black eye of bending over to catch his breath as it struggled to get in and out through bruised ribs. Bucky knew the fights happened, mostly on Tuesdays, when Steve went to the hospital to help his mother out and Bucky went home to watch over Becca, his younger sister.

Steve didn’t fight for the heck of it, Bucky knew. There was always a reason. A dame was being coerced into something she didn’t want. Some bully was pickin’ on someone else. Steve always fought for the little guy, even if the little guys were bigger than he. Steve’s mom was also sick all the time, and Steve grew more and more reckless and Bucky felt helpless as he watched the little Rogers’ family fly apart.

And Bucky, well, Bucky started to learn how to fight for real, because Steve refused to. Once he’d gotten the fighting down, he turned to what he considered his most important weapon; his charm.

Bucky had a way with people. He was good at manipulating them without even trying. And it’s not like he manipulated them in a bad way; he just didn’t want to alienate people so much that they stood by and did _nothing_ as he and Steve were beat up. So he watched older fellows sweet talk their women, he learned the smooth talk from gents and the charm from the lovers and how to be approachable from the men down at the docks. He practised, taking Steve out of the house from time to time to go out of their neighborhood and find some sweet young muffin to talk to. Steve would watch in the shadows, but he’d never thought that playing people was the way to go. Bucky, though, Bucky could see its worth.

By the time Bucky was sixteen and Steve was fifteen, both were different. Steve fought tooth and nail and Bucky would swoop in, finishing the fight or talking their way out of it. They’d go back and Steve would draw and Bucky would clean any wounds they had sustained.

“Hey,” Bucky said. He leaned against the door frame, head cocked to one side, hands shoved into his pockets in balled fists, grinning. Steve looked up from his drawing pad and returned the smile.

“What’s up, Buck?” He asked. Bucky grinned wider, ignoring whatever it was that Steve’s smile did to him.

“I got some extra money.” Bucky said, tugging his clenched hand out of his jacket pocket and revealing some crumpled paper. “How d’you feel ‘bout Coney Island?”

Steve’s eyes widened. “We’re gonna go?” He asked, standing up swiftly.

“Yeah.” Bucky said, his eyes twinkling and he smiled to show his teeth. “Yeah, we’re gonna go.”

“Yes!” Steve said and crashed into Bucky for a hug, wrapping his thin arms around Bucky’s waist and Bucky ignored any part of him that was too interested and wrapped his arms around Steve, closing his fingers around the precious bills.

“But shouldn’t your ma get some of that money?” Steve asked, pulling away.

“Gave her some.” Bucky said. “Now grab your jacket and c’mon already!”

“I’m coming!” Steve said and dashed away.

Bucky couldn’t stop grinning that day, soaring high into the sky with Steve by his side and the gentle wind brushing his face and the whole of New York City spread out below them. He couldn’t stop grinning when Steve threw up in the bushes afterwards, or when they explored the treasured island until it got too dark to see anything anymore and the gates closed, or when they trudged back to Steve’s apartment and Bucky waved goodbye before slipping down the dark alley and climbing over the splintered fence and dropping down to the gritty ground.

Bucky lay back in his bed, and all he could see were Steve’s smiles and Bucky felt like his heart would burst from just how much he lo—

Bucky’s grin fell away in the darkness, and he turned on his side and ignored the window with the soft moonlight trickling in and wished with all his might that those feelings would go away.

They started living together when Bucky was seventeen and Steve was sixteen. Bucky’s mother had died of tuberculosis, same as Steve’s mom. In fact, both had died the same winter. Steve had been sick with rheumatic fever, and Bucky’s mom had pushed him away from her to help Steve.

“I’ll be fine.” She’d said. “Just wait. You’ll see. I’ll be alright.”

And Bucky had believed her. He’d helped Steve get better, but in the end their mothers were dead. Becca had been sent off to boarding school, and Bucky and Steve had gotten jobs, quit school, and kept struggling to survive.

Their apartment was drafty, and odd smells would sometimes ooze in through cracks in the walls. The couple next door loved shouting at each other and random passersby on the street. There was only one bed, where Bucky and Steve would curl up under ratty, tattered blankets in an effort to keep warm. The winters were brutal on Steve, and the small man could only work sporadically. To make up for the loss of income, Bucky would work longer and longer hours in his job down at the docks. As a result, Steve would sneak out of the room more and more, looking for fights, looking for people to protect, to save, and help, and Bucky would come home to a small body racked with coughs and coated in blood and puffy eyes and a crooked nose and a small grin tugging at pale lips. Dust would drift in lazily on muggy winds, creeping through the cracks in the walls though they often kept the windows tight shut, and Steve would cough and cough and cough.

“I dunno, Steve,” Bucky said, eyeing his buddy’s shuddering frame warily. “Y'sure it's helping?”

“’S all in my head,” Steve gasped, lips clenched around the slender roll. The smoke drifted hazily upwards.

“Don’t think it is,” Bucky said hesitantly. “Who the hell wouldn’t want to breathe? The whole point of a body is to help you breathe. ‘S like some deep instinct inside the brain makes you breathe. ‘S why we fight so hard not to drown, right?”

“So?” Steve coughed. Bucky sighed and yanked the cigarette out of Steve’s mouth, feeling his friend’s hot breath on his knuckles for a spit second before tearing his hands away and crushing the cigarette out.

“So I think tha’ the asthma must be somethin' real an’ not this psychosomatic like those fancy doctors keep sayin’.”

“Gee, Buck,” Steve wheezed. “You could be a real doctor with that logic.”

Bucky grinned, unabashed. “Think the pay would be real good,” he said, mock-thoughtfully.

“Yeah, we could get a better, bigger apartment,” Steve replied. His breathing was becoming more manageable, and Bucky grinned wider.

“Yeah, maybe one that didn’t smell like somethin’ died in the walls,” he said.

Steve snorted. “Pretty sure there’s a whole cemetery in our walls.” Bucky laughed.

Bucky got a handful of jobs here and there, doing odd jobs for odd folks and complaining little. He had a few friends—acquaintances would be a better word—who he would go out with for a few drinks when they could afford it and Bucky would slip into the apartment and be a silent as possible, trying not to wake Steve from whatever sleep his friend would get. Then he’d crawl into bed and wish with all his might that he could take Steve in his arms, holding him as they both drifted off to sleep . . .

“Remember when I’d gotten scarlet fever?” Steve gasped, grinning slightly up at Bucky, who was wetting his forehead with a towel.

“You were five.” Bucky said. “I barely do. Your mom wouldn’t let me see ya.”

“Yeah, well, that was worse than this.” Steve said. Steve was susceptible to colds, which wasn’t good because they couldn’t afford very many warm things. But when one cold wouldn’t go away for two whole weeks and his nose started dripping yellow snot, Bucky knew something was up. He made a visit up to Ms. Simmons who lived above them, and who Steve helped with groceries and taking care of the upkeep of the apartment. She had been a nurse in the Great War, which had left her with poor eyesight, poor hearing, and a twisted leg. Stress had aged her face and body; she was mid-forties, perhaps, but looked decades older. Whispers were she’d been on the front lines and had done some fighting herself.

“Sinusitis.” Ms. Simmons had pronounced after looking Steve over. “Rest. Don’t fight. Don’t go outside.” And with that, she left and they could hear her thumping back upstairs, leaning heavily on her cane.

Bucky plopped the rag back into the small chipped bowl next to him and wrung it out, shaking the spare trickles of water off of his hand and returning the cloth to Steve’s forehead.

“My face aches more, though, for some reason.” Steve added after a moment, and Bucky snorted.

“Maybe your body has finally figured out you’re too stupid to continue.” Bucky muttered. “Geeze, Stevie, why’d you hafta get sick on me?”

“Sorry.” Steve coughed, his body jerking in on itself to steady the ripples that pounded through his body. Bucky didn’t know what to do, so he just waited for the coughing fit to die down and Steve to close his eyes before resuming his patting.

“Nah, ‘m sorry.” Bucky said quietly. “I shoulda looked after my mom or your mom so tha’ we wouldn’t hafta look out fer ourselves all th’ time.”

Steve blinked slowly, his eyelashes crusted over with gunk. “Like ‘s your fault.” He said breathlessly, trying to prevent another coughing fit. “’S mine. I shoulda pushed ya away to look after your mom.”

Bucky and Steve fell silent, and Bucky went back to dabbing at Steve’s sweaty, damp skin.

“Don’ think it’s either of our faults, pal.” He said quietly. “’S life, isn’t it?”

“All philosophical on me, Bucky, ‘m impressed.”

“Shut up,” Bucky grinned. It wasn’t his cock-sure, charming grin he sent ladies (and some men, too, down at the fairy bar, but Steve didn’t need to know that). It was _Steve’s_ grin, the one that was open and happy and felt real.

“Only if you do, jerk.” Steve said. His voice has muffled behind a yawn, and his eyes were drooping.

“You’re a punk.” Bucky laughed softly.

“I know.” Steve said and fell asleep. Bucky was left dabbing at Steve’s forehead until Steve’s breathing seemed to be doing okay and he wasn’t going to die suddenly by not breathing. Bucky leaned over and kissed Steve’s forehead before getting up and putting the rag away and climbing into the bed with Steve so that the idiot could maybe get warm, for once. He made sure Steve had most of the blankets.

He lay awake in the darkness, listening to Steve’s short breaths, and couldn’t remember when he had been more content.

“I’m just sayin’.” Steve said. Bucky was eighteen, and Steve was seventeen. “I’m just sayin’, Buck, that I’m all wet. You could go out there and get yerself a real sweet looker if you wanted to, and instead you’re with me and takin’ care of my whole list of problems.”

“It’s no big deal!” Bucky insisted, glaring at Steve. “Look, Steve, you’re my best friend, an’ I wouldn’t trade ya for the whole world. I don’t want to find myself a nice dame yet. ‘M having too much fun. Right now if I get all dizzy with a dame, it’ll be a trip for biscuits. What ‘m saying here, Steve, is that you’re my best friend, and I’m with you ‘til the end of the line.”

Steve sighed. “Just want you to be happy, Buck.” He muttered. Bucky felt his stomach jiggle when he looked at Steve’s earnest face and he put on a smile.

After that day in Coney Island, when Bucky had become aware that the feelings he had for Steve weren’t the usual best friend feelings, Bucky had done his best to stamp them out. He never felt like that with anyone else, not with any of the dames he’d been with or the two men he’d snuck to confirm his suspicions that he was queer.

“I am happy, Steve.” He said as truthfully as possible, because as long as he was with Steve, he was happy.

Steve just shook his head and headed out for work.

Steve didn’t know Bucky was queer until three days before Bucky left for the war. Bucky had been drafted, but he still had time and he’d wandered down to the fairy bar to blow off some steam. He didn’t need a woman right now. He was leavin’ Steve, and Steve would never know what was churning through Bucky’s head. Never.

But apparently Steve saw him slip out of the alley next to the bar and held his questions until dinner. Bucky was handing Steve his cup of liver juice, shit-eating grin firmly in place when Steve just looked him in the eye and asked if he’d had a good time at the bar. Bucky’s grin slipped off and he’d set the cup down with a bang. Steve pulled it away from him and continued looking steadily at him, eyebrow raised.

Bucky forced himself to shrug. “’S nothin’, Steve.” He muttered, picking at his food.

“Bucky, ‘m not judging you.” Steve said gently. “You coulda just told me.”

Bucky hunched his shoulder in. “It’s nothing.” He said harshly, though he knew the tone wouldn’t work on Steve. “Just a bit of foolin’ around.”

“At the fairy bar?” Steve asked dryly. “Bucky, that speakeasy ain’t for foolin’ around.”

“So?” Bucky said. “I got connections. Maybe it was just foolin’.”

“I don’t believe that.” Steve said. “Maybe you should take me sometime.”

Bucky looked up and blinked at Steve, who stared steadily back.

“I can’t.” Bucky whispered. Steve’s gaze faltered, a crack of unsureness leaking though. Bucky closed his eyes against Steve’s downcast look and simply pulled out the draft form and threw it on the table between them. He heard the rustle as Steve picked it up, nails scratching at the scarred wooden surface. “Got enlisted.” Bucky lied, throat tight. “I’ll be gone in a couple of days.”

“Orders?” Steve asked quietly.

“Not yet.” Bucky said tightly, and knew that Steve could hear the bitterness in his voice. “But it’ll be soon.” Bucky closed his eyes so that he couldn’t see Steve’s face fall.

“Buck . . .” Steve muttered, and Bucky could _hear_ the disappointment in his voice, knew about the fourth 4F’d paper crumpled in some alley somewhere, knew that Steve must be spiked with jealousy right now because Bucky got in and he didn’t and Bucky _didn’t have a choice_ and he’d give anything to stay here with Steve and continue living their happy, meager little life and . . .

And Steve was kissing him.

Bucky opened his eyes in shock when he felt Steve’s lips on his, and Steve’s eyes were closed, his long lashes brushing his cheeks, and it took a moment for Bucky, with all of his practice in charming the ladies (and men) to get into it because Steve was kissing him. Finally he started taking control, deepening the kiss slightly and clutching at Steve’s shoulders.

“You doin’ this ‘cause you want to or ‘cause you think I want to?” Bucky muttered when Steve broke off for air.

Steve looked at Bucky considering. “’Cause I want to.” He finally decided. “You want this?”

“Didn’t know you were queer.” Bucky said dazedly.

“D’you want this?” Steve repeated and in answer Bucky pulled him in for another kiss.

That was the only time they ever kissed in a long, long time.

Bucky’s final night was spent with two sweet dolls, but he could see Steve was unhappy. With his sickly body, with his inability to meet army standards, with Bucky for leaving him . . . When Bucky dropped the girls off for the night, roguishly grinning at them and kissing their hands, all togged to the bricks in his new uniform as he sauntered back to their apartment, wondering if Steve would be there. He wasn’t, and Bucky changed out of his uniform into his regular clothes and sat down with a glass of whiskey he’d pilfered from a bully coworker a few weeks back. He poured two glasses and sat down.

Bucky sat alone at the table, waiting for Steve, and eventually dozed off sitting in his chair. When he awoke, he saw that one glass had been drained. He peered into the bedroom and saw that Steve was asleep, curled in a ball and Bucky wanted nothing more than to crawl over to him and fall asleep with Steve, but he couldn’t. Instead he dressed back up in his uniform, pecked Steve on the lips one last time, and left without a backwards glance.

Years later, he wished he’d woken Steve to say goodbye.

The next time Bucky saw Steve was when he looked up from the table and saw Steve’s worried face looking down at him.

Bucky and his men had been captured by HYDRA, and Bucky had watched as men were taken away from the cells. Ankins, Felten, Bleeker, Smith, McBurney . . . they all died. Bucky knew; they all knew, because they burned their bodies days later for fuel for whatever hellish things HYDRA was doing.

Bucky didn’t make any empty promises to his men about getting out alive and being okay, but he tried to keep his cell mates spirits up with stories of him and Steve, grinning tightly as he spoke about how Steve could draw anything as long as he had seen it at some point in time. He spoke about the fights and Coney Island and that time that Steve had actually talked a dame into kissing him and then had ruined it by having an asthma attack halfway through. The men laughed and told him he had a cool friend. Bucky grinned, and kept all the special things about Steve to himself, held each soft smile and sparkling eyed grin close to his heart and wished that he’d had the courage to tell Steve sooner, that they’d had more time, that Bucky had given them both a chance.

“You got a woman to go home to?” Dum Dum asked, sprawled against the bars of their cage. His bowler hat was placed jauntily on his head. As far as Bucky knew, the only reason Dum Dum had been allowed to keep it was because the guards liked to knock it off his head.

“Nah,” Bucky drawled. He shot Dum Dum his smirk that had turned into one tight with pain and encircled by chapped lips. It was different from his open, self-assured one he’d sported just a month prior.

“Shame.” Dum Dum said. “Anyone else?”

Jones and Falsworth piped up with stories of their families of sweethearts back in their hometowns. Bucky leaned back against the bar, head tilted up, and tried to remember the press of dry lips to his own and blue eyes that were light and full of life. Bucky drifted into a doze with the knowledge that Steve was safe at home, fighting the good fight for the people no one else fought for.

When the little four-eyed scientist had chosen Dum Dum, the only soldier to have been chosen from their cell, Bucky had _screamed_ and had flung himself at the guard, using every scrap of fighting knowledge he’d gained throughout his lifetime of fighting to stop Dum Dum from being taken. Bucky’s cell was full of men from other units—Falsworth, Jones, Dernier—and he knew that if one of them had been chosen, then he’d have done the same thing. It was always preferable for Bucky to be hurt than someone else. It’s what Bucky had done all his life; he was expendable. There were hundreds of sweet-talkers free to dance out there. But Dum Dum had a sister that he took care of, and he’d joined the army to be able to get a little bit more money to take care of her. Bucky had no one. Bucky was a no one. He always had been.

The scientist had grinned slightly and told the HYDRA soldiers to take Bucky instead.

Bucky had been strapped to a table and injected with something that ran hot where the needle was and cold everywhere else. He screamed and pleaded and howled and fought and dozed and whimpered and repeated the same words over and over again. _Sargent. 32557038_. The world was spinning, and sometimes there were people around him, and sometimes it was just the little doctor, and one time the doctor—Zola, did he say his name was?—told him he’d lasted nine days, longer than anyone else, and Bucky had nearly screamed when he’d heard _nine days_ because it felt like hours or years or any measurement of time that meant everything and nothing all at once and then there was Steve . . .

Steve who was shouting his name. Steve who was _too tall_. Steve who was joking slightly and helping him walk. Steve, who was talking to a man with a red face. Steve who jumped though fire. Steve who gathered all the survivors. Steve, who led them back to Allied territory. 

Steve, who came and found him sitting slumped against the tree like he had all those years ago in the lot near the butcher’s shop. Except now there was no one to fight, and Bucky was so _tired_.

“Hey,” Steve said quietly, settling down next to him.

“Hey.” Bucky said through a dry throat. The air was slightly damp and cool; it slithered over his tongue as he parted his mouth slightly, sucking in shallow breaths that hissed past his teeth. The sky was clear, the fading sunlight hazy-golden in the distance, its last fleeting glow plastered over Bucky’s face. He closes his eyes to it and sees the light bleeding through his eyelids.

“What’s going on, Buck?” Steve asked softly. “What did they do to you in there?”

“Nothin’ bad.” Buck said, reopening his eyes. “Really.” He added at Steve’s unimpressed look. “Really, there were some needles, but I’m good. Been cleared by some pretty nurse back in camp.”

“So why’re you out here and not in there?” Steve nodded down the hill where the bar was. Below them the sun had set already, and warm yellow light spilled out of the open doors and inviting windows onto the darkened grass, shading it all different colors of dark green. Laughter and music could be faintly heard.

“Why’d you do it?” Bucky asked finally, ignoring Steve’s question. Steve looked curiously at him, and Bucky nodded to Steve, looking pointedly at his body. “Why’d you get all injected with that super serum?”

“I had to join the war, Buck.” Steve said gently, as if Bucky was the breakable one now. Which, Bucky thought, he _was_ now. Now that Steve was all big and tall and strong, Bucky was even _more_ useless. Steve tried to enlist himself five times, and Bucky had to be drafted. Steve got into fights to protect others, Bucky finished them so that Steve could live another day. Bucky and Steve . . . Without Steve, Bucky had _nothing_. But Steve was someone without Bucky, and Bucky could easily lose him now that Steve no longer needed him. Steve could do anything now, _be_ anything. And Bucky? Bucky couldn’t do anything but throw himself in front of Steve and hope to God that it buys Steve enough time to save the world.

“Buck?” Steve asked softly, and Bucky looked up to see Steve looking at him, worry etched in his gaze.

Bucky forced a smile on his face. “C’mon, let’s go join the party.” He stood and together they strode down to the bar, Steve easily keeping pace with Bucky.

Bucky tried not to miss the little Steve whose heart was bigger than his body, because now his body _fit_ his heart. But as he looked at Steve talking to some chaps who escaped HYRDA, trying to get them to join his team, Bucky almost fell over with how much he missed _his_ Steve. He stared at the hands clenched around his glass and wondered what had happened to the oozing slash that had spanned from his pinky knuckle to his wrist before deciding not to think about it. Ever. He blinked slowly at the other room where laughter and voices were calling to each other, daring the world to take their lives. Bucky didn’t utter a sound until Steve walked in. He plastered a grin on and joked with Steve and took a quick swig of whatever he was having. It burned his throat and Bucky welcomed the fire.

Their joking talk quickly dwindled into a seemingly lighthearted question, a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’; would he follow Captain America into the jaws of death?

No. The answer had never sprung so truthfully past his lips.

“That little guy from Brooklyn who was too dumb not to run away from a fight.” Bucky said softly and glance over at Steve, who was looking heartbroken and determined at the same time. “I’m following him.” And Bucky saw that Steve got it. That he got what Bucky was trying to say even though Bucky had never said it out loud and never would.

Bucky never kissed Steve, and Steve never kissed Bucky, and they never talked about it. They focused on the war. They focused on anything but their feelings for each other and Bucky could deal with that. He could. He would. He had to.

He wasn’t going to survive the war.

He knew it deep in his bones, echoing throughout his veins and rattling around in his skull. He knew it like he knew that air was a necessity, like Brooklyn was his home, like he lo—that Steve was everything to him. He felt a chill coating his flesh, the promise of a frozen death so far from home, so far from Steve, so far from peace. Steve thought that they could get out alive. Steve thought they could go home, maybe marry, maybe not. Make sure Bucky had some dame that he didn’t truly love while Steve looked on, happy for him, maybe married to Agent Carter, maybe not. That’s what Steve saw when he spoke of the future, and Bucky didn’t speak of the winter that would claim him.

They fought. Bucky became a sniper so that he could always have his teammate’s backs. He’d prefer to be on the ground, watching Steve’s back where it was real, where the distance between his barrel pointing that his enemies and the space between his back and his best friend were as close as possible, where he could react in the moment. Shooting from so far away was so impersonal, so not what he was used to (dingy, gritty Brooklyn alleyways, crumbled parking lots, quiet, abandoned streets), but he had the eye for it, he had the skill. None of the other Commandos did. So it fell to Bucky, like it always did, and he did not complain. He fought and bled and, in the end, died for Steve. He’d never gone to war for his country. It had always been Steve. Everything about Bucky had boiled down to Steve now.

Bucky was falling in the quiet snowy air . . .

And Winter claimed him.

Voices, screams, the clicks of guns, the patter of bullets, the juicy slapping of blood against the floor, the smell of smoke in his nostrils, the gentle whirring of a metal hand, the coldness of sleep.

The Soldier did not feel. Feelings were for humans, something he was not. The Soldier did not have any sort of feelings about not being human; it mattered little, in the end. In the end, there was always the mission.

He never faltered (that he could remember). He never failed (he wouldn’t allow himself to). Failure meant frail ribs cracking, already short breaths stuttering, soft skin bruising. Blonde hair caked in blood, blue eyes red and puffy, chapped lips cracked. Failing meant someone else (someone more important than anything else in the world) dying.

It’s then the Soldier reports to his handlers for a wipe, for he knows no person who looks like that.

He never did.

_I’m with you ‘til the end of the line._

Bucky—the Soldier—James—The Asset— _Bucky_ woke up in time to see Steve’s battered, bruised face gazing solemnly up at him. His words echoed in his ears, _the line, ‘til the end, ‘til the end of the line, the line_ , and Bucky felt like crying, like hurting Steve more, like running away, like—and then Steve was falling.

And Bucky fell after him.

There was no choice, in the end.

But he couldn’t stay. He _couldn’t_ , because half the time he wants to remember, and half the time he wants to forget, but he _couldn’t_ do either because his head was so jumbled with half-forgotten jokes and well-remembered missions and how could anyone deal with the blood that _coats_ his hands . . .?

Bucky was a good man, once. He wanted to do right by the people he cared about. To do right by his mother, his father, his sister and Steve. He was a good man. He went to church, though he had his doubts. He doesn’t doubt, anymore. God was lost to him a long time ago. He was a good man. He protected the people he loved with a quiet fervor that hummed through his veins like a choir of angels; avenging, unstoppable. He was a good man. Then HYDRA came, and that good man was buried beneath layers of repression and blankness. His skin was peeled away, one layer at a time, like peeling the skin off of a grape, delicate, soft, but done hundreds of thousands of times. His good man’s blood turned black and his good man’s mind turned blank and everything he ever had been, could have been, _should have been_ was gone, torn away piece by excruciating piece where each jagged line of the cohesive whole was marked by screams and tears and _God let this end_. God didn’t. Just smiled cruelly and turned away. Blind to his seizing body, deaf to his screams. No one was there for him. No one heard his screams; no one helped him.

There had once been a little girl with fire red hair. Bucky had taught her well. But that had been after Karpov had died, and so his new handlers did not understand that if they did not wipe him each week, Bucky would come clawing his way up from that ravine he had fallen in so long ago, howling at the world, daring it to fight him, to let him go, to save him, to end him. The little girl was programmed, like him, but unlike him knew nothing else. He told her to keep his secrets, promised her freedom if she kept her silence. Told her that their beloved country would fall, told her that he wanted to be free. She was programmed, like him, but unlike him she kept to it. He saw her doubts but she hid them, let them give her strength even as her programming guided her to turn him in and watch him freeze.

Bucky had been a good man. In that frozen ravine he huddled in for seventy long, bloody years, he cried out for the people he’s killed, for the atrocities he’s committed, and wondered if he was still a good man.

He didn’t think so.

Bucky sees the people he’s killed in his dreams, and Bucky knows what he’s done, what he’s become. What HYDRA made him. A villain. A murderer. Not human. Everything Steve fights against. That’s when he screams, curled up in some empty ware house, his hated metal arm grasping at his hair and his flesh arm wrapped around his middle.

Bucky takes down HYDRA with a fervor. He’s gone for a year, and he’s aware that Steve— _Steve_ , who is still too tall to be his, but now they’re both messed up and so Bucky just wants him back in any form he can have but knows he will never deserve any form of Steve — and the Avengers fight against an opponent created by one of their own and Bucky continues to take out HYDRA. By the time all is said and done, Steve is broken from the fight and Bucky is done destroying the enemy that created him.

He knows he did not get all of HYDRA, because oppression and a thirst for power are born in the human soul, and he is not killing each potential threat. He will not become HYDRA himself.

So he allows himself to be done for a while and whispers back to Brooklyn, to the apartment that is woefully under guarded. He slips in and pads noiselessly to the bedroom where Steve is sleeping. Bucky pauses there for a few minutes before crossing over to his best friend, to the man he has always loved, and leans over him.

Steve’s eyes snap open, and the look of hope, of relief, breaks Bucky’s heart.

“Bucky.” Steve breathes, and Bucky leans down further to bury his head in Steve’s shoulder, digging his hands between flesh and bedding to hold Steve in a hug. Steve’s hands fold around him in a minute, and they stay like that for an age, just breathing together, sagging against the pillows and the headboard and ignoring the solitary drops of salty water that slip past their lids occasionally.

Finally, when light starts to poke its head in through the curtains, Bucky pulls back. Steve looks up at him, his eyes full of content wonder.

“Coney Island looks different.” Bucky said after a moment. His voice rasped in his throat. It is an unused, shriveled thing that is better used or screaming than for talking like a human. “And the Smithsonian hero-worships you.”

Steve laughs, smile stretching his lips upwards, his eyes sparkling. It’s the smile Bucky missed; the one that was Bucky’s and Bucky’s alone.

Perhaps, here with Steve, he can learn to be a man again. He will never again be a good man. But maybe, one day, he will be able to say that he is _human_.

Then he will have won.

“I missed you, Buck.” Steve said, his voice thick. He leans up, eyes unsure. When Bucky does not object, Steve presses his lips to Bucky’s, barely a flutter. Bucky relaxes slightly, and Steve pulls away, eyes now warm. Bucky feels something fluttering in his chest, and he thinks it might be hope when Steve says, “Welcome home.”

_“There is no elegance in hate, but there is tremendous beauty in the unintended revenge of living well and being happy.”  
—Victoria Malin Gregory_


End file.
